In this imaginative book, Maya Jasanoff uncovers the extraordinary stories of collectors who lived on the frontiers of the British Empire in India and Egypt, tracing their exploits to tell an intimate
In this study, Bosworth looks at Alexander the Great's activities in Central Asia and Pakistan, drawing a bleak picture of massacre and repression comparable to the Spanish conquest of Mexico. He inve
Their conquest was measured not in miles but in degrees of longitude. They smashed the gates of empires, overthrew kingdoms, diverted rivers, and depopulated entire countries. They were the Mongols of
How did upstart outsiders forge vast new empires in early modern Asia, laying the foundations for today's modern mega-states of India and China? In How the East Was Won, Andrew Phillips reveals the crucial parallels uniting the Mughal Empire, the Qing Dynasty and the British Raj. Vastly outnumbered and stigmatised as parvenus, the Mughals and Manchus pioneered similar strategies of cultural statecraft, first to build the multicultural coalitions necessary for conquest, and then to bind the indigenous collaborators needed to subsequently uphold imperial rule. The English East India Company later adapted the same 'define and conquer' and 'define and rule' strategies to carve out the West's biggest colonial empire in Asia. Refuting existing accounts of the 'rise of the West', this book foregrounds the profoundly imitative rather than innovative character of Western colonialism to advance a new explanation of how universal empires arise and endure.
How did upstart outsiders forge vast new empires in early modern Asia, laying the foundations for today's modern mega-states of India and China? In How the East Was Won, Andrew Phillips reveals the crucial parallels uniting the Mughal Empire, the Qing Dynasty and the British Raj. Vastly outnumbered and stigmatised as parvenus, the Mughals and Manchus pioneered similar strategies of cultural statecraft, first to build the multicultural coalitions necessary for conquest, and then to bind the indigenous collaborators needed to subsequently uphold imperial rule. The English East India Company later adapted the same 'define and conquer' and 'define and rule' strategies to carve out the West's biggest colonial empire in Asia. Refuting existing accounts of the 'rise of the West', this book foregrounds the profoundly imitative rather than innovative character of Western colonialism to advance a new explanation of how universal empires arise and endure.
For the British Empire it was a military disaster, but for Imperial Japan the conquest of Malaya was one of the pivotal campaigns of World War II. Giving birth to the myth of the Imperial Japanese Arm
Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion surveys two thousand years of the Christian missionary enterprise in the Middle East within the context of the region's political evolution. Its broad, rich narrativ
"Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion" surveys two thousand years of the Christian missionary enterprise in the Middle East within the context of the region's political evolution. Its broad, rich narrat
The askari, African soldiers recruited in the 1890s to fill the ranks of the German East African colonial army, occupy a unique space at the intersection of East African history, German colonial histo
A large collection of 33 papers which cover a wide range of topics relating to the Late Roman military. Essays look at aspects of military reforms, of military strategy, from the broad picture to indi
A sweeping and dramatic history of the last half century of conflict in the Middle East from an award-winning journalist who has covered the region for over thirty years, The Great War for Civilisatio
"Bury St Edmunds is noteworthy in so many ways: in preserving the cult and memory of the last East Anglian king, in the richness of its archives, and not least in its role as a mediator of medical tex
This meticulous study of Joshua 9:1—13:7 and archaeology offers a new historical picture of the Late Bronze – Iron Age transition in the Southern Levant and defines the ideology and antiquarian intent
Part of a series on civilization and cultural transmission in the Middle East, this monograph on the historiography of western Muslim writers on the subject of the eighth century conquest of the Iberi
This book analyzes how early Muslim historians merged the pre-Islamic histories of the Arab and Iranian peoples into a didactic narrative culminating with the Arab conquest of Iran. Through an in-dept
Ahmad bin Yahuya al-Baladhuri's History of the Arab Invasions is perhaps the most important single source for the history of the great Arab conquests of the Middle East in the sixth and early seventh centuries. The author, who died in 892, was a historian working at court of the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad. He had access to a wide variety of earlier writings on the conquests and has preserved accounts that are not found anywhere else. But the book is much more than a series of accounts of battles. Baladhuri was very interested in the origins of the Islamic state and its institutions. His work contains a wealth of information about government, land-holding and economic developments. It is, in short, a key text for anyone interested in the formation of the Islamic world.In this new modern translation, fully annotated with a scholarly apparatus and commentary on the places, events and individuals mentioned, a key source on the Arab conquests is made available in English. It will be essen
From late fourth century BC Seleucid enclave to capital of the Roman east, Antioch on the Orontes was one of the greatest cities of antiquity and served as a hinge between east and west. This book draws on a century of archaeological fieldwork to offer a new narrative of Antioch's origins and growth, as well as its resilience, civic pride, and economic opportunism. Situating the urban nucleus in the context of the rural landscape, this book integrates hitherto divorced cultural basins, including the Amuq Valley and the Massif Calcaire. It also brings into focus the archaeological data, thus proposing a concrete interpretative framework that, grounded in the monuments of Antioch, enables the reader to move beyond text-based reconstructions of the city's history. Finally, it considers the interaction between the environment and the people of the city who shaped this region and forged a distinct identity within the broader Greco-Roman world.
Hasidism, a kabbalah-inspired movement founded by Israel Ba'al Shem Tov (c1700-1760), transformed Jewish communities across Eastern and East Central Europe. In Men of Silk, Glenn Dynner draws upon ne
